Family Game Night Planning
Our Game Night was planned as a mid-winter team building exercise for the students that would culminate in a fun evening event for parents, guardians, siblings and other family members. Since this was our first Family Game Night, we felt we had to provide the structure for the evening, then let the students “fill-in-the-blanks.”
Our school has small group advisories, and these were the “teams.” Each grade was assigned a category, and each advisory within the grade chose a game. In addition to bringing one or more copies of the game, they had to divide themselves in groups to stand-by the game and be ready with a copy of the rules. When not supervising their game, students would be rotating through Game Night, playing games with their family members.
The middle school advisories, grades 6, 7, and 8, were assigned board games. Grade 9 had electronic games, grade 10 had Wii games, grade 11 had Karaoke, and the seniors were to run the Cake Walk. We felt these categories would support a participation rate that declines as students get older. We anticipated many board games, and a few PlayStation/Wii type games. Karaoke practically runs itself, and the Cake Walk is easily managed, so if few older students participated, adult volunteers could manage those activities.
We designed a grid listing each advisory and space to list which game they were bringing, what supplies they would need (SmartBoard, projector, power, etc.) and which room they would be in. The advisors were asked to provide a list of which students were coming to Game Night. Poster board was provided so advisories could decorate their playing area and/or write out the rules of their game.
Teacher advisors worked with the advisories to help the students decide which games to bring. We had not anticipated that the younger students did not want to bring the games they played at home because they wanted to bring something more fun and exciting. They were also worried about losing pieces of their personal games.
Board games were set up in the cafeteria. Several advisories brought Twister. One advisory designed a human-sized checkerboard and planned to use people as playing pieces (complete with paper crowns). Other games included checkers, Jinga, poker, Monopoly, and UNO. Also in the cafeteria was the Karaoke machine that was hooked up to a television set. This was a popular group activity.
PlayStation, Wii, Xbox and Kinect can be hooked up to a projector and projected onto a screen or whiteboard. They can also be connected to a SmartBoard. For Game Night, we had three Wii games (set up in half the gym), a PlayStation and a Kinect. (in the Library). The second half of the gym was set-up with remote controlled cars and helicopters. Also located in the Library were games for small children – an idea from one of the senior advisories.
The cafeteria had plenty of room to accommodate the games set up in the library, and the gym could have accommodated a fourth SmartBoard – we would not use the library in the future.
The Cake Walk was set up in a classroom next to the library, and was hugely popular. In the future we will hold this event in the library and clear the area after each “round.” A definite entrance and exit are needed to help manage the many people who will flock to this activity. We will most likely turn the Cake Walk into a fundraiser the next time we play it, charging a fifty cents per ticket or three for a dollar. The numbers 1 – 10 were printed on pieces of paper that were taped to the floor in a big circle. One person stood on each numbered piece of paper. Music was played, and participants walked around the circle until the music stopped. After the music stopped, only one person could be standing on a number. A volunteer picked a number from a bucket, and the person standing on the drawn number chose a cake to take home.
One of the challenges we had was that people wanted to play continuously until they won. This would not have been fair to people waiting to play. We had to institute the rule that nobody could play twice in a row. Another rule might be one cake per family.
We had several teachers volunteer for the evening, and they played games, and helped supervise. Parents tended to congregate and socialize and didn’t play too many games (many did participate in the Cake Walk, and a few enjoyed the remote control cars). Several PTA members were on hand to sell refreshments.
